ART FOR ART'S SAKE

NEW YORK — Friday at the Thander Gallery on 92nd St., the artist Jean-Claude will present his first one-man show, titled “Incongruity and Other Deceptions.” The show will open to a Who’s Who in the art world. Speculation runs high on the value of the yet-unseen work. An art critic who spoke on the condition of anonymity said, “The art world had better brace itself. Jean-Claude’s work could rocket in value to numbers never seen in the market.”

By invitation only, everyone who was anyone elbowed their way through the doors at seven. Servers floated through the blinding white rooms offering hors d’oeuvres of beef carpaccio, salmon mousse, and asparagus spears glued to crackers with goat cheese. Wine and champagne flowed in an endless supply, guzzled by art lovers waiting to see, waiting to be seen. The quantity of the food and drink seemed unending, outdone only once by the guy who’d catered the event of loaves and fishes.

The socialites, the experienced art-opening gluttons, could talk the talk of art jargon that left others stroking their chins and nodding their heads. “You see here, on the left of the painting—broad strokes of cadmium red, interspersed with the stippling of viridian green—shows us the juxtaposition of the artist’s torment with the essence of self. With one downward movement, he expounds on his hellish experience of the bondage of his own body,” a critic said.

Whispers of anticipation crept through the room. Jean-Claude would be there soon. The guests would have time to walk the gallery and stroll into their wallets and checkbooks. All work was for sale. Buyers would be offered the first chance to invest in a budding Boudin. Or was he a modern-day Monet? Did he possess the soul and fiery passions of Picasso hidden deep in his loins? Was he as creative and destructive as Pollock? He was rumored to work with the frenzy of a flame and the prolific nature of a virus.

Jean-Claude. Jean-Claude. Jean-Claude. His name invoked innovation—magnetic charisma and liberation. Men and women alike wanted to be near him. The new obsession. The boy of the day. Bodies and appearances passé.
The artist as model is out. The rugged four-day beard and matted black hair speaks to virility, but as a fool. A would-be sex boy, a split-shirt wonder with bulging jeans and art as cologne.

No, Jean-Claude is himself. A slouched-down character, stuck in a wheelchair by fate. His arms are flippers that flail back and forth making slapping sounds as they hit his custom-made, sleeveless leather jacket. His legs are immobile and as flaccid as over-cooked noodles. He’s strapped into his wheelchair to overcome the inevitability of gravity, an astronaut from another universe descending like a god to a roomful of leeches. Jean-Claude. Jean-Claude. Jean-Claude.

The whirr of his motorized chair silenced the room. He paused in the doorway, stopping by using the tube inserted into his mouth. Puffs of air controlled his motion. His head askew: a bowling ball of meat too heavy for his neck to keep erect constantly. But Jean-Claude isn’t about body. The creative juices, the brilliance flowed through his mind and into an attachment, a harness strapped to his head. A simple Indian headdress with a paintbrush affixed like the light on a miner’s helmet.

Jean-Claude, the artist, painted with his forehead. He wore his brush like a proud tattoo. Without it he was just another wheelchair sideshow—people scornfully dropping coins into a cup of coffee that he hadn’t quite finished.
“Nank hew or cuming,” Jean-Claude said. And with that his head shook wildly, left and right and up and down. The paintbrush looked like a conductor’s baton. The crowd yelled “Bravo!” with steady, but soft applause. His nurse ran over and injected something into his IV. Jean-Claude went limp.
“Brilliant!” someone shouted.
“Such genius writhing out of a decrepit body!”
At the moment of pure adoration, smoke started to waft into the room. The fire marshal wouldn’t reveal for six weeks that a smoker had dropped a lit cigarette into a pile of cloth napkins. The New York Times wrote of the melee:

DISABLED ARTIST TRAMPLED TO DEATH

NEW YORK — In a scramble for safety, art patrons clawed their way out of a single exit door trying to escape a quickly moving fire in the Thander Gallery on 92nd St. Numerous broken bones and severe lacerations were reported. The only fatality was the featured artist, who was attending the opening of his first one-man show, sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art and Americans with Disabilities. The artist had been sitting in his wheelchair next to the exit and was tipped over by terrified patrons. Fire officials found the charred remains of Jerry Schmiddle, also know as Jean-Claude. The intense heat melted his wheelchair around his body. Firefighters initially determined the metal was part of the exhibit. The artist’s total body of work was also consumed by the fire. Donations may be made in care of HeadArt at the Harlem branch of the YMCA at 181 W. 135th St.